Raising ticket prices is not the only way that theme parks can make visiting more expensive. From the parking lot to restaurants and shops, parks have multiple ways to squeeze more money from their visitors.
Fans have gotten used to it. Parks might offer a refuge from everyday life, but there is no escape from higher prices. Yet if it’s worth it, fans still go. But it is especially frustrating whenever parks start charging for something they have been offering for free.
Knott’s Berry Farm soon will start requiring guests with bags and other loose items to pay for a locker to stow those items before riding three of its most popular roller coasters: GhostRider, Silver Bullet and Hangtime. No more stowing bags for free in cubbies on the load platform.
Forcing people to use lockers instead of station cubbies should help speed up loading, which helps reduce wait times. With bags already stowed in lockers, people can just get in the coaster car and go, rather than crossing over to put their bags away.
Knott’s needs to find ways to speed up their ride operations. The queue for GhostRider, especially, crawls when compared with other major coasters. Knott’s coasters are not built for an ideal, two-sided locker operation in the queue. Cubbies on the platform slow down loading, so lockers outside the entrance it is. Yet many other top parks, including Disney and Universal, offer free use of some ride lockers, making Knott’s decision to charge for their use feel like yet another money grab.
Knott’s will allow guests to keep phones, wallets and other small items in their pockets. So that’s one way to avoid the new locker charge, which starts at $3 for the first two hours. But not every theme park visitor can travel so lightly. Forcing guests to pay for lockers on rides that cannot safely accommodate the bags and other items that many of today’s visitors need during theme park trips feels like an act of hostility by businesses that should be practicing hospitality.
At least when some parks offer new upcharges, they are for new services. For example, this year, Universal is offering an opt-out to its scare zones at Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights.
New “Deathly Afraid” necklaces are Universal’s version of the No Boo Necklaces that Knott’s and other Six Flags parks have been selling at their haunt events. Universal’s version will not keep scareactors from targeting you in houses. They also are available only in Orlando this year, though park leaders in Hollywood have said that they are watching how fans react to the necklaces in Florida.
Scare zones are unique among theme park attractions in that there often is no way to avoid them. You have to walk through certain scare zones to get to other locations in the park. So I can see why some people who are otherwise okay with haunt experiences might want an option to avoid them.
Parks could offer that with bypass paths and not installing scare zones in pinch points. But those alternatives would not make the parks any extra cash, would they? You might avoid the scare, but you cannot escape the squeeze.
